The Art of Trying to Stay Strong

My view right before
heading to the courthouse.

Divorce is a bitch.  

There just isn't a kinder and gentler way to say it because divorce just isn't kind or gentle.  

I had to go to court today--a little trip to downtown Madison which probably cost me the equivalent of a round trip ticket to and a couple nights stay in London. 

Divorce makes sane people petty and vindictive.  It makes insane people homicidal.  Generally speaking, I think I am closer to the first category, and I just hate the meanness I feel seeping out of my pores as I steel myself to sit at a table with my ex and two highly paid lawyers.

When things sort of went my way today, I felt like doing a fist pump right there in front of the court commissioner.  "In your face!" I wanted to yell to my ex.  I know too well that if this ends up going before a judge in a couple of weeks, I may be crying copious tears of sorrow and crumpling into a fetal ball in front of the clerk of courts' office.  Any proceedings that deal with the dissolution of a marriage and the subsequent support of children are like buying Powerball tickets.  For ever moment of fairness there is one of gross injustice.  Sometimes the guy who just lost his job and home picks the winning numbers and sometimes the millionaire takes home greenbacks to use as bookmarks and coasters.

Divorce is an ongoing bitch.  It isn't a single moment in time when you end a relationship with someone you thought you would spend your life with. It goes on throughout your life.  Even when you don't have to negotiate vacations with the kids and divide up insurance co-pays, you still carry those questions.  What went wrong?  Do I carry more than half the blame?  Why was I so unlovable?  Will I ever dare to try again?  Will my life ever be the same?

I know that I will never be the same.  While I hate those feelings of meanness, I do relish the sense of accomplishment that I have made it through the worst.  I didn't stay in a situation that was never going to improve.  I am not a gutless wonder.  And no, that is not my ex's head under my foot.  That is divorce baggage.

So, I am not planning a celebratory dinner this evening.  I will wait patiently to see if this ruling sticks.  If it does, I will be happy.  If it doesn't, I will try to be happy that it didn't turn out worse.

Stay strong, those of you who are walking or will walk this path. This Prairie Grl is there for you.

Prairie Sherry    

Musing over the 4th of July

Last evening I was walking through the grocery to get to the time clock when I saw the sign, "Show that you love America!"  Hanging next to it was a small collection of red, white, and blue star-and-stripe emblazoned infinity scarves--$7.99 each.  I thought about that display all the way home and into this morning.

Does sporting red, white, and blue one day a year show that you love your country?  Is loving your country sort of like loving your teen-agers?  You'll always care deeply about them, but you may not always like or be proud of what they do?  I know come members of Congress who need to be sent to their rooms for a time-out, immediately! And no dessert!

What is patriotism?  Is it the belief that your country is always right?  Is it the belief that for some reason your country has special status with the Almighty, whoever or whatever that higher power might be?  If there is spiritual being who created our earth, would she/he/it love some of her creation more than others? Seriously?  Although my middle child often tells me that all parents have favorites, I think a universal being would be above that pettiness.

I've lived in Denmark for almost a year, and I truly believe that the Higher Power loves the Danes as much as she loves Americans. How could you not adore a Dane?  As a whole they are friendly, generous, neat and tidy, and they rank very high on any happiness scale I have ever read about.  The Danes are pretty darn proud of their country, and with good reason.   By the way, they are pretty darn pumped about their flag, too.  They even use it to decorate their Christmas trees.  It is also easy for young children to draw--red background two intersection white bars.  Have a four-year-old try to reproduce the flag of the United States and you have a real mess.

When I was younger, my sister and my brother-in-law had this cool flag showing the world as seen from space.  That is what they put outside their home on the 4th.  "Citizens of the world," I think they put it.  I have always liked that idea.  It is more inclusive.

Notice that I chose a picture that doesn't have North America
 as the center of the universe.  I bet the Higher
Power really loves the Aussies as well!

When my 17-year-old goes out with friends, I always tell her, "No sex, drugs, or rock and roll."  She knows I mean business about the first two but am pretty lax on the last.  I think we need to adopt a similar admonition for all of the countries in our world.  "No mean talk, backstabbing, or fighting.  The Higher Power loves us all."

Enjoy your long 4th of July holiday.  Remember that Laura Ingalls got to go to town to see a 4th of July parade in Little House on the Prairie. I think I may just dig out my copy for some afternoon reading.

Prairie Sherry

The Art of Inspiration Part 2

My previous post, The Art of Inspiration Part 1, left me in a bitter space.  No ideas for my Nonfiction writing class.  Violent Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) flashbacks.  Two pages scrawled with whining.  (My former roommate used to remind me that whining is anger through a teeny tiny hole.)  Sad, sad, sad Prairie Eydie.

I decided to look through the journals I was keeping when I worked at MPS.  I thought memories would be jostled and I could start writing a best selling memoir with confidence.  Surprise!  There were no "Ah-Ha" moments in my journal - only page after page of self-righteous nonsense.  Here is an example:

I felt empowered when I stood up to leave the crazy librarian's office.  She was boring me and my time needs to be spent doing worthwhile, important things.  (July 1992)

Need more?  Here is another excerpt:

I want to be a Princess of Power and go around and energize people who are just too tired.  Like a mother of five.  Where does she get her empowerment from?  From people like me. (August 1992)

Gulp. Who was this monstrous twenty something who had gained control of my journals?  This cretonne who thought she was more important than others?  This whippersnapper who thought she had super powers to offer a mother of five?  (I doubt the 24 year old me ever thought of becoming a 46 year old mother of three.)

  

But, Prairie Friends, I did find inspiration in revisiting my journals.

Here is my idea.  What if I pulled out some of the more outrageous, self-centered journal entries from my twenties (Which would pretty much be all of them) and responded to them as a 46 year old?  I am going to give it a try no matter how painful it is to be inside my twenty something psyche.  I'll keep you posted. 

If you are like me and have piles of journals in the closet, consider reading them.  What would you say to your younger self? 

Prairie Eydie 
 

 

The Art of Inspiration PART 1

Two weeks ago I took a nonfiction writing class.  I arrived at the first class without an idea.  I thought we would be brainstorming ideas, completing meandering free writes, and discussing topics.  (Lesson learned.  Next time read the syllabus.)  It soon became clear that everyone had an idea and almost everyone was in the final stages of writing their books.  GULP.

My classmates' books sounded awesome. 

• One woman was writing a memoir.  Her mom left the family when she was 16 and never returned. 
• One man was writing about prayer.  (I wanted to preorder his book, because he was so calm.) 
• Someone else was writing about her daughter, who has special needs and can't speak.
• Oh!  Another woman was writing about growing up in a Tibetan village.  She was going to weave her grandmother's recipes throughout her writing. 

I left the first class feeling frantic and desperate for an idea.  Any idea.  I hastily decided it was time to write about teaching in the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) for ten years. 

I could start the poignant memoir with being hired to teach 8th grade science in MPS. (My only qualifications for this position was that I once took 8th grade science.)  The memoir would end with the day I finally had enough abuse. (The students had set the dumpster on fire during a staff meeting. Imps!) 

Somewhere over the rainbow, principals are sane . . .

 

I could sprinkle in "hilarious" vignettes about my parade of administrators.  There was the principal who wrote my final evaluation when I was showing the movie Twister at the end of the weather unit.  (I got very high scores.  Probably because I knew how to operate the remote flawlessly.)  Who could forget the principal who would plink out "Over the Rainbow" on the intercom whenever he felt like it?  He had a piano in his office and preferred to communicate in show tunes.  (Can I add that he was the highest paid administrator in MPS?)  My memoir would also showcase the amazing teachers I was privileged to work with (Mara, Keila, Janell, Jess, Dawn and on and on and on). 

Maybe if I take a nap an idea will come to me in a dream

Here is the catch.  I sat down to start my MPS memoir and found that I didn't want to write it.   Writing it felt like homework.  There was no passion behind my pencil.  My muse had taken a coffee break and I was left sitting there with 2 pages of whining. 

To be continued . . .

The Art of Saying Good-Bye

I lost a friend yesterday.  She had never been very robust in the three years I have known her.  This spring she came out of our six-month winter looking even thinner, and when I could see her bare arms at the end of May, I knew it was time.  Several severe thunderstorms convinced me if I didn't act soon, we might end up with part of her falling through our roof.

I have never been good with good-byes.  When I retired earlier this month, I made a beeline out of the school so I could avoid shedding copious tears on my colleagues.  I am always much better with a casual , "See you later," or "Let's get together for dinner soon."

And so it was with my dear ash tree.  Yesterday morning I drank a final cup of coffee under her shade and thanked her for the many lovely times spent on my deck under her canopy.  I had to leave when the arborist came with truck and chainsaw.  When I returned, she was in pieces on my back lawn.  

I couldn't stop myself from going through the debris and salvaging a couple of logs.  Here are the results--sort of a memorial to my old friend.  I know the birds will enjoy the cooling waters.

A plate from TJ Maxx and a stump.

The stump grinder will be here in a week.  I really hate good-byes.

Prairie Sherry

The Art of Appreciating Happiness

Day 43:  Prairie Eydie's
favorite salsa.

Several months ago I began to receive these daily Facebook posts from our own Prairie Eydie--"Day 14 of 100 Days of Happiness" and there would be this picture of a venti latte from Starbucks. Or "Day 23 of 100 Days of Happiness" and the photo was of PE's own Lulu (age 4) squeezing the begeezus out of the family cat. Secretly I thought to myself, "Lordy Eydie, clean out a sock drawer or something.  Who has time to be looking for happiness each day?"

Gulp.

Prairie Eydie is a very "the glass is half-full" sort of gal.  In fact, Eydie tosses in a few ice cubes and adds a squeeze of lime and a teaspoon of organic sugar to make that glass overflow.  She knows how to celebrate the little happinesses in life, and I know that this is one of the many reasons I enjoy being around her.  Oh, we have shared more than a few boxes of Kleenex. Last year's week-end collage trip at the cabin had us both mournfully blubbering about the many unfairnesses of life, but on the Universal Scale of Happiness Appreciation (1-10), Eydie is decidedly an 11.  

Knowing that my dear friend would never knowingly lead me down an angst-y path, I decided to start my own "100 Days of Happiness" photo montage.  And do you know what happens when you start looking for happiness?  You find it everywhere!  I am so backed up with happiness pictures,  I have decided to share a few with you.  Think of it as happiness overflow.

Is there anything that can make a person happier than finding something that you thought you had lost months after you thought you had lost it?

This is my favorite paring knife.  I have had it for 10 years. Annually, I send it to a distant eastern state to be hand sharpened by cloistered nuns.  It is a knife of such quality as to be worthy of being included in a legal document and passed down to the next generation.  My children will fight over this knife before I even make it into the urn.  

Last September this knife went AWOL from my knife block.  I noticed its absence immediately and went through a garbage can full of  a week's refuse three times to no avail.  I accused every member of the household (including the dog) of grand theft.  I searched through each cupboard and drawer in the kitchen with meticulous care.  I even lined said cupboards and drawers with decorative and expensive lining paper thinking that the penance might bring that knife back. No enchilada. 

Yesterday, I made the first strawberry jam of the season.  I longed for that knife as I topped those organic berries with an inferior implement.  I dragged myself out to the garage to retrieve the blue enameled canner from the top shelf. I slogged it back into the humidity-heavy kitchen and dumped it on the stove. I heaved off the lid to fill it with water. Inside that canner I found my collection of jar rings, the canning funnel, two packages of jar lids (small and large mouth), and...the knife.  Suddenly my heart lightened.  I called my at-home children together to celebrate the return of the prodigal paring knife.  Such unexpected happiness!

Looks a bit like a bagged buttocks.

Related to that jam I just mentioned is my next bit of happiness. This is a loaf of bread from the grocery that now employs me (Hy-Vee, Hy-Vee, Hy-Vee--shameless advertising, but we are employee owned).  This loaf makes me very happy for several reasons.  For one, it is a really good-tasting loaf of bread.  It is chocked full of whole grains, not too dry, and just the right density to make really good toast or to be eaten as is.  

The second reason I love this loaf is that it is like two loaves in one.  My at-home daughters are not whooping crazy about whole-grained bread.  They might eat a slice of this if it was the last thing to be found in the refrigerator and the car was totally out of gas.  I take this little two-for-one number and popped half in the frig and half in the freezer.  I never have to eat stale bread again.  Simple but pure happiness!

These are my at-home-from-college daughter's sweaters.  She loves argyle.  I love my daughter.  I love having my argyle-loving daughter home.  Nothing more needs to be said.  Extreme happiness!

"She had better be bringing home the kibble."

I am throwing this one in to drive Prairie Eydie crazy. She is a cat person.  I am a dog person.  She tells me I have far too many pictures of my pooches posted on Facebook.  This is our newest pup waiting for me to come home.  Oliver Twist Harry Houdini Puttmann (the name will be explained in a future post) is a nine-year-old rescue who has called us his own since April.  He adores me.  It makes me momentously happy to be adored!

Even having shared these, I still have enough happiness photos left to last me through next week.  Prairie Eydie was right.  There is so much happiness around us when we take the time to just look for it.  You don't even need a camera. Just enjoy! 

Prairie Sherry   

The Art of Retirement

Many apologies for my long absence. This Prairie Grl has been dang busy these past few months.  Let me give you a rundown. Bear with me. This post may be classified as TMI.

I think one of my last posts may have been during my drug-addled recovery from a broken wrist.  Prairie Readers may remember that I stepped out on my driveway on the morning of January 6th only to find myself in the ER an hour later with a rather nasty mess wrapped in a splint.  Three weeks of of ice and pain meds and one surgery later I was back in the classroom, having missed most of January.

As of June 23rd, completely healed with 95% mobility!

This is a higher caliber show than my usual fair of
Naked and Afraid on the Discovery Channel.

That time spent at home was devoid of writing, collaging, and even reading.  I found I couldn't focus long enough on a page to remember what I had read/written 30 seconds earlier. I did find myself watching a great deal of mindless television, which led me to begin rethinking my immediate future.

Poor Prairie Gus, forced to
"have fun" at Old World Wisconsin.

The former master plan had been to continue teaching for four to five more years.  Forced into a state of seclusion and virtual immobility, I began to realize that, as Prairie Pa reminded us in last week's post, I needed to start carpe-ing my own diem.  After 35 years in the classroom, I really didn't want to go back for year 36.  I wanted to regain use of my wrist and hand, and I wanted to take my life, throw it into one of of washtubs at Old World Wisconsin (that place where Prairie Eydie takes her children to experience the manual labor of old), swirl it around vigorously, scrub it on one of those old-timey washboards, hang it out in the sun, and start fresh.

With my arm still in a sling, I started applying for possible retirement jobs. Let me tell you, those applications are miserable when typing with one finger. I wanted something that would keep me engaged with people but required no papers to attack with a red pen.  I wanted to continue working with young people, but not to write referrals for "insubordination" and "excessive tardies."  I also wanted to go through at least a week without having a 14 year-old call me a "f------ b-----."

I am happy to report that businesses still want 58 year-olds.  I received a number of interviews, and I accepted a position with a large Midwest grocer, Hy-Vee, that (not "who"--a corporation is not a person) was just opening a new store two miles from my home.  After a month of training, I helped open the store as a "customer service representative"--meaning that I am the person who handles customer problems, questions, and fuels gambling addictions with lotto cards.

At times, I also relieve exhausted parents by
plying small children into semi-socially
acceptable behavior with candy.

March, April, and May were exhausting.  I worked two jobs, averaging 60-65 hours a week, but there was that golden date in my near future, June 13th, that kept me going.  At 1 pm on that day, I shut off my classroom computer, picked up my purse and the last of my personal belongings, and walked out of room 530 for the last time.

I have to invest in a new iron.

This is my second week of my new life.  I am working about 20-25 hours a week.  I look forward to putting on my crisp, white shirt and my name tag and helping my customers.  I am surrounded with teens experiencing their first jobs as cashiers and bag packers.  None of them has used the b-word to describe me.  In fact, they find me quite amusing at times.  I kid them mercilessly.  My young assistant managers are friendly and upbeat, even when working long hours and juggling a million tasks.  They know I am a hard worker and that I can be counted on. The small customer service staff are incredibly supportive and kind.  I am in a very good place.

Shut that dang door.
Company is coming.

I have enough time at home where I don't feel the need to write long "to do" lists.  This past week I spent my time in the yard and garden because that is where I wanted to be.  I didn't want to be in the house organizing closets.  Closets have doors on them for a reason. My grandchildren spent the week-end, and I had time to share a popsicle with them, go to the farmers' market, and make a batch of strawberry jam. A friend dropped by to spend a couple of nights while attending an event in town, and I didn't even pick up the kitchen before she arrived.

This has gotten rather wordy and lengthy, but now that I have explained my new circumstances, I can get back to my regular posts.  Many thanks to Prairie Eydie and Prairie Pa for getting us started once again.

Oops, need a coffee break.  The sun is just perfect on the deck.  I'm not going to even proof-read this a second time.

Rory beat me to it.

Prairie Sherry